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By Thomas ErdbrinkThe New York Times • Sunday December 8, 2013 10:01 AM

TEHRAN, Iran — Atomic experts representing the U.N. nuclear watchdog landed in Tehran yesterday
to inspect a plant recently opened to them, after access was denied for years.

The team from the International Atomic Energy Agency is to inspect the Arak heavy-water
production plant today. The visit is in the wake of the agreement last month between Iran and the
agency that allowed for expanded monitoring. The plant produces heavy water for a plutonium reactor
that has not been finished.

Iran has said the plant is for energy production; if it became operational, however, it would
produce plutonium that could be used in a nuclear weapon.

In the accord last month, Iran agreed not to produce fuel for the plant, install additional
reactor components or put the plant into operation.

The state Islamic Republic News Agency confirmed the inspectors’ arrival and said that Iran had
provided research data on its new, higher-capacity enrichment centrifuges.

In the agreement, Iran committed to freezing parts of its nuclear program for six months in
exchange for sanctions relief. The pause is intended to allow negotiators time to produce a
more-lasting agreement.

Yesterday, President Barack Obama said he could envision a final agreement that would let Iran
enrich nuclear material for power production with enough restrictions and oversight to assure the
United States, Israel and the rest of the world that it could not produce a nuclear weapon.

But he said there was no guarantee that such a deal would emerge.

“I wouldn’t say that it’s more than 50-50,” Obama said at a forum at the Saban Center for Middle
East Policy, part of the Brookings Institution in Washington, “but we have to try.”

Iran has continued to claim the right to enrich uranium for peaceful purposes; the agreement did
not limit its ability to enrich uranium to low levels suitable for producing electricity.

Yesterday, in an apparent effort to promote the agreement at home, President Hassan Rouhani told
students in Tehran that Iran’s uranium enrichment centrifuges “would never stop spinning.” But in
an apparent reference to the lifting of international sanctions, which have severely damaged Iran’s
economy, he added that the “people’s economic lives should also continue to spin.”